The Republicans' Bush problem?
Posted: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 9:45 PM by Domenico Montanaro
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White House
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro and Ben Weltman
With President Bush speaking tonight by remote to the Republican National Convention and set to visit hurricane-stricken Louisiana tomorrow, it's worth pointing out the president's remarks this morning.
“We recognize that the pre-storm efforts were important and so are the follow-up efforts -- in other words, what happens after the storm passes is as important as what happens prior to the storm arriving,” Bush said.
But that was one sentence. He made a hard pivot.
The next three paragraphs were devoted largely to the importance of energy by way of the Gulf region - and its importance to the United States -- gas prices, and taunting Congressional Democrats.
“And so our discussion today is about energy,” Bush continued. “The Gulf Coast region produces a lot of energy for the United States. And we're now in the process of assessing any damage done to the infrastructure and what -- it's a little early right now to come up with a solid assessment. There are some encouraging signs. For example, during Katrina, rigs would be -- rigs moved because of the force of the storm and their anchors drug across pipelines, which caused there to be infrastructure damage. We didn't see much of that this time, although I will tell you that it's a little early to be making any forecasts.”
And he went on. “It's not too early, however, for the federal government to continue to coordinate with state and local people. That's why Secretary Bodman was in touch with Gov. Jindal. We want to make sure that we're in touch with these energy-producing states, to help assess what took place and what needs to happen.”
And then the naked politics: “One thing is for certain: When Congress comes back, they've got to understand that we need more domestic energy, not less; that -- and one place to find it is offshore America, lands that have been taken off the books, so to speak, by congressional law. And now they need to give us a chance to find more oil and gas here at home. I'd much rather American consumers be buying gasoline produced from American oil than from foreign oil. I'd rather our dollar stay at home than go overseas.”
More still: “And I know the Congress has been on recess for a while, but this issue hasn't gone away. And this storm should not cause the members of Congress to say, well, we don't need to address our energy independence; it ought to cause the Congress to step up their need to address our dependence on foreign oil. And one place to do so is to give us a chance to explore in environmentally friendly ways on the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Contrast that with Gov. Bobby Jindal at a news conference this morning, who didn't once mention the need for protecting oil rigs or the importance of the region to the country's energy.
He had more pressing matters.
Jindal did mention fuel -- fuel to power hospital generators and the potential lack of fuel and power at gas station. There certainly wasn't any mention of Congress. He did talk about reports of damage, pressing health-care needs and restoring power to various parts of the state.
"We are still being impacted by the eastern periphery of this storm,” Jindal said, continuing later, “[N]ow you got a storm that's caused widespread damage through a wide geographic part of our state. … [O]ne of the things I want to emphasize is that this is still a very, very serious storm that has caused major damage in our state. …
“We still have a number of pressing, urgent issues when it comes to health care. I described the evacuation as the kind of the pre- game, the pre-season, if you will. And I warned people that even after days of evacuations and preparatory efforts they shouldn't be exhausted because this was a marathon. We're not quite yet at halftime. To use a sporting analogy, people need to understand there's a lot, lot more work ahead of us. A lot of damage has been caused by the storm.”
And, politically does President Bush's hard pivot step on McCain's plea for compassion Sunday?
“It's time to open our hearts, our efforts, our wallets, our concern our care for those American citizens who are now under the shadow and the probability of the natural disaster,” McCain said. “So I hope that all of us … will not only keep in our thoughts and our prayers the people of the Gulf Coast but we will act, we will act together, we will provide the necessary relief, the necessary comfort. We will open our arms as Americans always have in time of challenge to those in our society who are less fortunate …
“So ahead of time I wanna thank all of my fellow Republicans as we take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats and we say “America, we're with you. America, we're going to care for these people in their time of need” and we're gonna display it in every possible way as Americans always have and Americans always will.”
Any wonder why this president's speech was conveniently set for 10 minutes before the networks go live with their coverage?
